a life before
by le Citron
Summary: The story of Don's life before he became that ruthless drug dealer we all know and love. Questions will be answered, love will be realized, lives will be destroyed. A prequel to Don  The Chase Begins Again. Yes, my Don looks like Shah Rukh.
1. chapter one : welcome wagon

_This story is told through the eyes of Sarah, an American who moves to India with her family the age of 7 (and a half). The majority of the story is told in flashbacks, but allow me to clarify a few things. _

Sarah lives next door to Don. She is about 5 years younger than he is. She is not mentioned at all in the film, and she is a product of my own imagination, an explanation for the ruthlessness and promiscuity that Don exhibits in "Don - The Chase Begins Again". 

I do not own Don, or anything even remotely relating to him. I just love the character and wanted to write in a history that did him justice. 

I do own Sarah, her family, and all of the words that I write. 

Comments, critiques, and any feedback is LOVED greatly. I don't usually post my fanfiction... and I'd like to know what others think. 

**...chapter one... **

I met him when I was seven and a half years old. I remember my age because I wore it like a banner then, like a badge that gave me the right to do many more things than a seven year old could even conceive. I used my age to bolster my claim that my parents had no right to hold me hostage in this strange, new country. Back then I still thought that my words held some value in their minds.

"You can't do this to me!" I screamed as my father walked. He was slowed by the gigantic box that he was carrying to the door.

"Shh!" He was losing his grip on the cardboard. His body wasn't used to the heat, and my aggravation was surely wearing him down. I could almost taste the stale peanuts I would eat on my plane ride home.

"I'm seven and a half years old! You can't treat me like a _slave_!" I was screaming so loudly that my voice cracked.

"Be quiet! The neighbors will hear you!" My father said this in a hushed, frustrated voice. He stopped in an attempt to reposition the box in a more favorable position. The box would have none of his negotiation, but this gave me an excellent vantage point to finish him off. I watched his thin fingers grapple with the box as it wilted in the thick air. I knew my victory was near.

"I won't be quiet in this hell!" I felt the surge of energy that comes from using forbidden grown-up language. As the box slipped from my father's grasp and onto the brick walkway, I screamed, "I'm going home!"

My father was too angry to follow me; I escaped around the house to the back yard, which was well-manicured and filled with a myriad of flowers and a beautiful (if somewhat grandiose) water fountain. In protest, I began to throw rocks into the shallow water.

"You will break the fountain." He said in awkwardly perfect English syntax. I turned around, wiping a stray tear from my face. The boy had materialized from nowhere, and stood a foot away from me.

"Damn the fountain." I said courageously, waiting to see his eyes widen beneath that mop of black hair. Swearing was a big deal back home and, I assumed, an even bigger deal here in India, where everyone wrapped themselves in sheets. He met my gaze levelly, though, unimpressed. I threw another rock at the gurgling fountain to spite him.

"Stop." He gritted his teeth. I raised my hand to throw a larger rock, but he grabbed my wrist before I could. He squeezed until it almost hurt, but I wouldn't let him see my discomfort.

"Let go of me." I said in an almost-scream. He tightened his grip. "You can't touch me. I'm not your whore!" The word hung in the air, resting on a thick cloud of hot humidity and waiting for the next syllable. After a moment of glaring, his fingers released my wrist.

"You are right." He said in a cocky voice, without the remorse I thought he should have. "Whores are pretty." He backed away from me, with a smile on his face that confused me. It confuses me even to this day. I didn't feel insulted, under that smile I felt a strange kind of happiness combined with nervousness.

I stood dumbfounded as he walked. My mouth hung open to catch flies even after he disappeared over the white fence, and I walked around in a daze for the rest of the week.

At that moment, I decided to give India a chance.


	2. chapter two : marriage

_Flash forward to three years later... Sarah is 10 and Don is 15. Hopefully the rest of the story will move this quickly._

...chapter two...

"What did you to today, Sarah?" My father always asked that question. Every night at dinner, around the time that he was putting the vegetable on his plate, he would turn and ask me that same question. That night was no different. The rigid structure that began in his office spilled over into every area of our lives; it left nothing undefined, nothing was safe from the quiet destruction.

"Hung out with Don." I replied with the same answer I'd given him for the past three years. I ate a piece of broccoli and grimaced. The conversation was over.

"What did you two do today?" My mother's voice was always subdued, it always remained on the same three-note register. She was venturing into uncharted waters; we all knew that no one cared about what Don and I did that day.

"Stuff." I shrugged, and stabbed a piece of meat with my fork. It was so covered in sauce that I couldn't decipher whether it was mutton or chicken.

"What kind of stuff?" She was giving this her best shot; I looked up, wary of her interest, but still the slightest bit overjoyed that she wanted to know.

"Well, we went over to Vanraj's house, and-"

"Vanraj Dutta?" My father said in a monotone voice. His eyes barely left his spoon.

"Yes. And we were playing cricket, and they picked off teams and Vanraj said that I couldn't be with Don because then the teams wouldn't be fair. But Don picked me." I paused for a moment to gulp down some juice.

"And so Don called him a baby and said that it was his choice and he could pick whoever he wanted. But Vanraj was still mad because he knows I'm really fast and can catch anything, and Don's the best batsman in the whole city, and he knew his team wasn't going to win. So he kept saying that we had to split up because-"

"Sarah, slow down. Chew your food with your mouth closed, please." She said, stopping up all of my words. I could tell then that she didn't care at all, but I kept talking.

"Because it was his house and he's got the best pitch, so we said 'okay' and I went onto his team. But I was really mad and so every time I could catch one of Don's hits I let it go and his team scored 6 runs before lunchtime. So Vanraj got really mad at me and pushed me onto the ground and started hitting me." I paused for dramatic effect. Their heads both shot up from their plates, and I felt the glow of their eyes on me.

"Are you alright?"

"What did he do to you?"

"Were you bleeding?"

"What's that Dutta's phone number? I'm going to call..."

"Do you need a drink? Have you gotten a bandage?"

Their questions came quickly, and I had to shout above them to be heard.

"Wait!" I said; my father stopped walking toward the telephone, and my mother stopped scanning my head for bruises.

"Then Don tackled him and beat him up pretty bad... there was blood and stuff... and he said that if he ever touched me again that he'd kill him in the next second. And everyone knew that he was serious. And then we left, and walked around town until it was time to go home. He bought me a samosa."

They sat there in silence for a few moments. Then my father returned to the table and my mother started to eat. I sat there in disbelief, hoping for more of a response than I received. This was one of those times that taught me to expect little from them.

"You know, Don's really too old to be playing with you." My mother said after a moment of concentration. The pragmatism in her voice struck fear into my heart.

"What's he now... fourteen?" My father took a pensive bite of flatbread and chewed slowly, sharing a gaze with my mother that went directly over my head.

"Fifteen, I think." She replied. They both looked at me in a symmetry that was frightening.

"May I be excused?" I asked quickly, desperate to escape. My father nodded and I rushed off into the kitchen. I put my plate down on the floor and hid behind the corner, out of sight. I strained to listen to the rest of their hushed conversation.

"Why is he hanging around her? Doesn't he have any friends his own age?"

"They've been so close. Maybe he doesn't mind the age difference..." I was surprised to hear a defensive response on my behalf from my father.

"Well, what does he want with her? They're together all the time, and he must be getting teased about it from his friends. It's not normal, Jerry."

"She's not a normal ten year old girl, either. Maybe they just get along, and that's it?"

My mother paused for a moment; I was tempted to look out from my perch, but knew that I would be spotted if I made any noise now that my parents thought I'd gone into my room.

"What if he wants to marry her?"

I heard my father cough violently.

"What? God... why would he want that?"

"You know, they do things differently here. I overheard some of the girls discussing horoscopes and marriage partnerships. It's not unheard of... those Muslims marry girls all the time."

"Isn't he Hindu?"

"That's not the point, Jerry. The point is that we've got a strong young man going through puberty and spending his days with our impressionable young daughter. What are we going to do about this?"

I felt anger rise up in my stomach and mix with the fear. I was many things, but impressionable was certainly not one of them. No one could fool me. The guys always tried to tell me that I was pale because I was sick, and missing lots of vitamins that made you dark. I knew that they were lying, and punched Dilip in the arm for talking about my funeral.

They were quiet for a long time. I wondered if they had figured out that I was in the kitchen, and had begun using sign language to communicate below my radar. I imagined them sending rapid messages back and forth, deciding different ways to ship me back to America or lock me in my room or get Don sent away to prison.

"What can we do?" My father said softly.

"We..." My mother began the word with emphatic certainty, but it drifted off into silence within seconds.

"I think she'll be fine. He'll get tired of her soon, start chasing older girls... nature will take its course."

Upon hearing this I felt my blood run cold in my veins. My parents were no longer an enemy to my friendship with Don... now nature was fighting a battle against us. Time, too, it seemed, had a part in our demise. How could I stop time? Could I get older before he did? Somehow a part of me always thought that I would catch up to Don in years, but it hadn't happened yet.

I stood up and walked to my room, taking my time before approaching the window that overlooked the fountain. He was standing there in the near-darkness, kicking the concrete base of the fountain haphazardly. I saw him there and I knew that I had to say something, had to be certain that he would not let time and nature get in between us. But I knew that he would laugh at me if I said anything like that to him. I was at a loss for what to do; the fear of losing my best friend sent me into a state of mental paralyzation.

I would have to write him a letter.

I sat down at my desk and grabbed a piece of paper and my favorite bright orange pen. When I wrote, the words came easily and I wrote with the dignity of a royal Indian poetess.

_**Don,**_

_**This is Sarah. Don't let nature or older women or time come between us. Fore while we are far in years, we are close in spirit. I know what kind of candy you like, and you always beat up Vanraj when he's being stupid. Maybe we could get married later, but I really would like to just be friends now. I still want to see the Taj Mahal with you, so please wait until I am old enough to stay out past dark before you go there.**_

_**Thank you,**_

_**Sarah Renard**_

I folded the paper several times and carried it in my teeth as I climbed out of my window and landed on the grass with a soft thud. I put the note in my hand, which was now sweating in the evening heat, and walked toward him.

"Hey." I said, sitting down next to the place that he was kicking. He didn't respond, so I tried another angle.

"What's up?" Another moment of silence passed. "Stop kicking it!" I said angrily, hitting his ankle with my own foot.

"Ow. Stupid..." He muttered, sitting down next to me and massaging his ankle. We sat there for a moment in silence, and I set the note on the space between us. It seemed obvious to me, but he ignored it and stood up to look across the fence. He had his back to me as he spoke.

"My father is leaving." He said softly.

"Where's he going?" I asked; his father was always going to some business meeting in Nepal or Bangladesh. Don loved it when he would leave because he wouldn't have to clean his room and he could turn his music up much louder at night.

"I don't know." He breathed, and I watched his shoulders rise and fall. I wondered, for a moment, why he looked so much older than me.

"When will he be back?" I ventured, leaning tentatively forward. He turned around to me and shouted so loudly that the force sent me spilling backwards into the water.

"I don't know! He's leaving, for good! He is leaving me. He is leaving the house. He is leaving my mother. God, why are you so stupid?!" This wasn't the first time he yelled at me; it wasn't the first time he'd pushed me into the fountain. But it was the first time that those two things coincided, that I felt no levity in my heart as the water seeped through my clothes and cooled my skin. When I looked at his eyes I saw, for a moment, nothing familiar in that cold, black world.

"I'm sorry." I said quietly. I remained in the pool, my legs sprawled out around me, until I saw the outdoor lights come on. Don saw them too, and suddenly his eyes were normal again. I prayed that I would never see them that dark in my life.

"_Shit_." He muttered under his breath, his head darting from the door where my father was standing to me, sopping wet and being drenched by a steady stream of water. He pulled me out of the fountain quickly and dove behind the massive structure just as my father was starting to walk out to us.

"Sarah! What happened?" He did not seem too concerned, but was squinting to see what happened. He walked slowly, as though he was heading towards a buffet table after eating three plates full of food.

"I..." I stammered, looking back at Don for a moment before formulating my answer. "I wanted to swim." I said strongly. My father stopped where he was, about six feet away from me, and shook his head into the darkness.

"Come on inside. We'll get you cleaned up." He said. I trudged toward the door behind him.

"Honestly... I don't know what goes on in your head." My father seemed disappointed. I sighed, and wondered what it would be like if he said that he was leaving forever. My thoughts were drawn back to his conversation with my mother; if my father left us, I probably wouldn't be allowed to see Don ever again.

I sped up to reach my father's side, and grabbed his hand.

"I'm sorry, Dad." I said, enjoying the warm, safe feeling of his big hand against my fingers. I was glad that he wasn't going away, and I felt a pang of sadness for Don. I resolved to take him to see a movie tomorrow, and buy him two packages of M&Ms to eat. I always knew just how to comfort him.


End file.
